In Deuteronomy 29 another important point comes up – a change still more manifest. We have the fact that “These are the words of the covenant, which Jehovah commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” Now it is important to bear in mind that, if it had been merely the covenant made in Horeb, the children of Israel could never have entered the land at all. It was necessary, according to the far-counseling wisdom and mercy of God, that there should be another covenant. I say not the new one, but that God should bring in fresh terms, and not merely insist on the strict application of the law that was pronounced in Horeb. He brings in governmental mercy. Thus God now as it were says, Here you are on the very borders of the land, and I will bring you in. You must take care how you behave when you are there. Hence it is God making fresh terms for the very purpose of putting His people in the land without compromising Himself. This is here shown with care.
The end of the chapter gives us even more. When the people had altogether and publicly failed, grace can bring out from God Himself the only suited remedy. Now Israel take their place before God. They are called to keep the words of the covenant; the very children are brought in and put before Jehovah, with solemn warning against idolatry, as well as other acts of rebellion. But the point lies here: “The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” The character of this has been often noticed before; but it cannot be too much insisted on always; that grace, though in a distant and enigmatic manner, alludes to an unrevealed secret, whereby, when the people have utterly failed, as we have seen, on the ground of law, God will not fail to find ways and means of justifying them by faith. It is not merely words by which He can bring them all provisionally into the land, but means as yet secret by which He can justify them in the face of all their faults, and work in their hearts according to what is in His heart – in short, His secrets of grace.